U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken indefinitely postponed his visit to Beijing due to a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the United States.
Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images
BEIJING — U.S.-China relations look increasingly fragile, analysts say, after a now-downed Chinese balloon forced U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to indefinitely postpone his trip to Beijing.
While the alleged spy balloon posed little actual threat, analysts pointed out the high level of public attention constrains how far leaders can act in pursuing gestures of stability. The two countries’ presidents met for the first time in person under the Biden administration about three months ago, when Blinken’s travel plans to China were first announced.
“The nascent US-China détente is now in critical condition, if not entirely dead, and any future détentes would be similarly vulnerable to derailment by domestic politics,” Gabriel Wildau, managing director at Teneo, said in a note.
“A key question is why the Biden administration decided to publicize this balloon but not previous [reported] ones,” Wildau said. “The answer remains uncertain, but we suspect that unlike with previous Chinese balloons, US officials believed this one would inevitably be discovered by the public even absent official confirmation.”
U.S. government representatives did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment on the decision to disclose the balloon’s existence to the public.
The U.S. Department of Defense said a U.S. Air Force fighter shot down the balloon over the weekend, after initially deciding not to while the balloon was over U.S. land. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a classified China briefing with all senators will be held on Feb. 15.
“Schumer revealed that we do know that once the balloon was exposed to the public, China attempted to maneuver the balloon to leave the U.S. as soon as they could,” a Senate Democrats press release said Sunday.
China’s Ministry of National…
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